Bill_Billiams wrote: ↑Fri Jun 02, 2023 1:50 pm
John Calvin is probably the most influential reformer behind Luther. Boylan is really going to have to step his game up if he wants to exceed the influence of Calvin.
For sure. And he only lived to be 54 years old. Luther made it to 62.
A critic once tried to mock Calvin for having no surviving children and he replied something like, "I have children all over the world."
There is a wall in Geneva with statues of Calvinist Reformers on it: Calvin, Beza, Knox, and William Farel in the center. On their left are other Reformers. On their right are Oliver Cromwell, Roger Williams, and Stephen Bocskai. The inclusion of Cromwell and Williams makes the subtle argument that Calvinist thought eventually led to democracy and freedom of religion (though no legitimate historian would ever say Calvin was pro-democracy or pro-freedom-of-religion himself).
Little-known fact: Calvin was also the father of the modern divorce, "modern" in the sense that one party was not executed to free the other party from the marriage and the non-offending party was allowed to re-marry. The Protestant Reformers saw that the medieval system of no-divorces-ever-unless-your-spouse-is-dead (and if you did get one, you couldn't re-marry unless your ex died) was too harsh and unfeasible. Geneva was among the first localities to begin very reluctantly granting divorces for adultery, and they did not always execute the offending party. Calvin's own brother was granted a divorce (though, in my opinion, Calvin's sister-in-law was falsely accused, and she re-married outside of Geneva).
I am not Calvinist, but I think it is incredibly important for historians to give theologians of the past credit where due, even when we disagree with them. And we owe Calvin a lot, whether we like him or not.